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Christmas Cards Made 2016

Sunday, 29 March 2015

Once again it is time for our fortnightly challenge at the Christmas Card Challenge. We are a group of ladies who make a Christmas card each fortnight, taking turns to choice the theme. It was my turn this fortnight and my choice is Feature A Creature or even a Critter! If you wish to check out the cards from the other members, I have the hyperlinks to their blogs on my right sidebar.

I picked this Penny Black Caroling Trio stamp for my Creatures. I have always loved this image and decided to spark it up a smidge and use some brighter colours for this card. I had a snippet of musical note organza ribbon and thought it suited the carolling mice quite nicely.

I chose that brilliant teal card for the mat as I happened to have that snippet in my bits box, already edged punched and all. What luck!

Once I had the image matted and mounted on the background DP design, I added a couple of dollar store lime green felt snowflakes from my stash. These came on a sheet of bright aqua and bright green snowflakes in various sizes. I think they were great value for money and enjoyed using their bright shot of colour.

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

It is the 25th of the month and you know what that means...Time for the February Rudolph Days Challenge. Here is a quick recap of the Rudolph Days Rules.

1. Rudolph Days will start monthly on the 25th and will close on the last day of that month.
2. The theme is always Anything Goes, as long as it is Christmas.
3. One entry per person and you just need to enter one Christmas card. (You can have more than one card on your post, but your post will still only count as one entry)
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month.
6. Prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world.

Last month's winner, Sally Miller of Krazy Jayne blog is a guest designer this month. Sally has made this gorgeous gold embossed, and very, very pretty bird card. So very shimmering and full of sparkle. I love the way she has echoed that gorgeous gold with the diecut mat!

We have a second guest designer this month. Tanya of Little Art Cottage blog. Tanya was the lucky winner of the January Rudolph Days challenge. I love the soft and pretty colours of her adorable snowman image! That snow is so realistic...feels like Christmas already!

Here is my March Rudolph Days card. It is simple in design but I really enjoyed making it. In keeping with my aim of making some slimmer cards this year, this one will definitely fit through the regular postage slot.

I stamped the Hero Arts Winter Scene image onto a snippet of white card and then chalked the sky around it. I thought it seemed sort of flat so I went over that chalk with some glimmery chalks that are about 10 or more years old. They are made by Yatsutomo and the intensity of the colour can be changed by how much water you use There is a lovely shimmer to the sky now.
Placed that matted image onto some glitter card and then mounted that finished topper onto a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 square card.

Suddenly, I remembered that when we were moving, I missed a Snow Covered Trees theme at my Christmas Card Club. So I pulled out my Zig glue pen and fine white Stampendous Glitter added some snow to the trees and a few snow drifts for good measure! Makes me feel a little better that I caught up a bit with this card. Here is a little close up of that snow...I am happy with this card as it seems more arty than my usual style.

Monday, 23 March 2015

On the first Wednesday of each month, I go to a local card making group at my local scrapbook store. We take turns designing a card and bringing the supplies for all of us to make it.

April is my turn to bring the card kits and here is what I have planned. You all know how I am trying to whittle away at my flower stash, so I guess it is no surprise that cards kits for a group of ladies would contain flowers!

I am using a never before used item...my Sizzix Conservatory Window die. I am not using it as a window though...I am using it as a balcony planter full of blooms! I cut out 9 of these planters out of my snippets of heavy weight Bazzil.

I ran a snippet of grey heavy weight Bazzil through a Darice wood grain EF to create the look of a wooden wall. I glued the die to that and pop dotted the bottom Planter Box forward a bit. I got a little carried away with the Martha Stewart leafy branch punch for the greenery and totally covered up the planter portion...lol Sorry about that but you can use your imagination!

The branches were punched from a sort of ugly pastel green lighter weight card. It looked too light so I inked them randomly with Ingvilde Bolme Prima chalk inks in Moss Lawn Green and also in Olive Vine green. Here is a close up to show the shading...

The wee flowers are from my never ending stash and I doubled them up for extra petal depth and held the layers together with a teensy brad. So 10 flowers in total on this card. Yay...10 times 8 ladies, plus my 10 flowers on this card, and that is 90 flowers used! I will only add the 10 that I actually used on this card to the flower ticker at the top of my blog header, but it feels good to actually get 90 flowers out of the jars!

I wanted to fit my Elizabeth Bell Hello sentiment onto the back of the planter frame but it seemed to get lost in the background. There was not a place on the planter back large enough to mount it, so I cut a Spellbinders circle die in the same white card and sliced off the bottom third of the circle. I glued that over the too small existing half circle design. Finally had a half circle large enough to showcase my sentiment.

Hopefully the ladies like this card. None of these ladies blog, so I am safe to post my card here early!!!

Saturday, 21 March 2015

Had another gander in my UFO box and found a card that I had started to make a very long time ago. I was planning to use it for a card to tuck a wee bit of cash into.

I used up a VOS purse sticker as I thought it so suited the cash theme of my card. This purse sticker is about 15 years old. I think it came on a page of 5 or 6 stickers and the rest were used on layouts right away. This last sticker has been looking quite lonely in the drawer...it was good to get it used at last.

I feel like I am on a first name basis with my VOS supplies. Nothing like packing and unpacking them to remind you just what you have. I am also quite pleased I managed to get another card out of the UFO jail! This one languished in there for quite some time as I had already glued on the DP, the green scalloped border, the two silk flowers anchored with a flower brad (my NBUS item), and the sticker. I never got it finished as I lost the snippet of matching green card I had saved for the sentiment.

Today, I got the bright idea to add a second green colour as a thin strip alongside the scalloped piece. I had just enough of the second colour to stamp the two sentiments. I fussy cut around the Best Wishes stamped image, and diecut the For You sentiment with a Spellbinders Scallop die.

The background paper has a sparkle and sheen on bits of the pattern...Hopefully this photo catches that sparkle. I don't know the manufacturer anymore as this snippet was from my bits box

Still not one of my favourites, but a finished card never the less.

Hey, I just realized that I can add two used up flowers to my flower ticker! What a bonus!!! One down, 135 more to go...lol

In case you are wondering what NBUS items are, my friend Darnell has coined this word and has a challenge to go along with it. NBUS is Never Before Used Schtuff...now I know we all have some! Since my flower brad is my NBUS item, I will pop over to Darnell's blog with my entry.

Thursday, 19 March 2015

I am sharing a card I made at my friend Gloria's crop. Once a month, Gloria opens her craft room to a few friends and we spend a wonderful evening creating,sharing stories and having a few giggles. Gloria always makes a tasty meal and we take turns bringing the side dishes. Mmmm yummy!

I took a couple of my homemade card kits and made a few cards there this month. This Penny Black image birthday card is one of them. I tried to go for a mixture of brighter colours combined with some that are a bit more sedate. This may very well be used for one of Little Miss C's friends birthdays, so I tried to keep it younger looking without looking too young...she will be 9 this Fall!.

Some of you may have noticed my used flowers ticker at the top of my blog. As I coloured the cupcake I realized it had a flower tucked into the icing. That inspired me to use a few more and I am happy to add 4 more flowers to my ticker I failed so miserably at my flower goals last year, that I was glad to tick a couple more used flowers off today. I layered two VOS prima type flowers and held them together with a lime green brad. The two wee pink opalescent flowers are acrylic. I popped a diamond over the teensy hole in them as it hurts my fingers to work with the tiniest brads these wee flowers need. Instead I held them onto the card with a tiny glue dot!

The Memory Box branches were cut out long ago and added to the card kit. Other than the coloring, this was a quick card to assemble. The aqua ribbon is a self adhesive type trim from a dollar store package. It is easy to cut a piece slightly larger than needed to tuck into a card kit and then trim it down to size once on the card. That way, if the edges fray in the kit box, it does not matter.

Sunday, 15 March 2015

It has been quite some time since I played along at the Christmas Card Club. This fortnight Sylvie at Gibmiss chose the theme of Anything Goes. If you wish to check out the cards from the other ladies, the hyperlinks to their blogs are on my top/right sidebar.

Soon as I saw that, I though I would use it to get caught up on some of the themes I missed while I was busy with the move. Two weeks ago, Dutchess chose Poinsettias of any colour, so my card today is to cover both of these themes.

I coloured my poinsettia is mauves with a twist of green around the edges. I have a couple of friends who love purples so had them in mind here. The background papers are Authentique Seasons; Winter line and the Snowflakes are an Impression Obsession die. I added a VOS snowflake rhinestone bling to the center of the smaller snowflake just for a little bling. This card has a shabby feel but Xmas does need a little bling...right???

Recipe
5 1/2 inch square card base and envelope - from my stash
Card stock - snippets of kraft from my stash
DP - patterned and solid papers from Authentiques Seasons; Winter line from my stash
Dies - Impression Obsession snowflake die
Stamp - not sure of the name of this image as it is from a stamp evening at my local scrapbook store
Bling - rhinestone snowflake bling from my VOS stash

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - Must use snippets
2. Christmas Card Club - Anything goes as long as it is Christmas

Saturday, 14 March 2015

I spent some time in my craft room today, getting a couple of the shoeboxes better sorted. I decided to focus on the UFO boxes. After getting two of them sorted, I cam to the realization that most of those cards are sitting in there unfinished, 'cuz I didn't like most of them enough to finish them!

Oh well, at least I am being honest! I don't hate them...just not really into most of them. Since my family members sometimes take some of my cards to use, I decided that it does not really matter if I love them or not...so...I managed to get a couple of them completed and thus freed from their UFO jail.

This card was originally partly finished at a Stampin Up card night. I loved all the other cards I made that night, but lost interest at this one. I managed to get one almost finished that night so had a pattern to duplicate. Two more awaited finishing, and here is the final result.

The stamps, clouds, EF and papers are all Stampin Up. Not sure of the names but know they are SU. I really liked the clouds cut out that way but didn't really ever get into that hot air balloon craze when it was popular. I made a couple of mistakes when I stamped the bases of the hot air balloons, so I hid those by placing the balloon portion over them and then restamped the bases. I pop dotted the balloons for some extra depth...

So, I have two more cards finally finished and released from the UFO box, I am happy about that!

No challenges for these as they are not my designs and not my snippets...

Thursday, 12 March 2015

I feel a wee bit slow in getting my craft room set up and organized. I know I showed you the photos of about half of it on this post. So here is the rest...warts and all.

You may recall my story of the soaring costs of getting in painters for the top two floors. So keeping to my miniscule budget, I used Craigslist again and also repurposed some pieces, to finish off this half.

Here are some shots of the inside of the closet. Sadly, I have to store DH's books in here. Luckily, the shelving unit I keep my punches and extra long border dies in, had a matching slim shelving unit...just the right size for paperbacks!

That is the door to the walk in closet that you see just to your left. Here is the view as you walk in to it. I managed to find another of the matching oak trimmed bookcases. It holds photo albums we got from DH's Dad. Lots of very old and very wonderful photos in there! As you can see, I have to share this bookcase with DH's books. Just after I took this photo, he went down to the basement to check out my progress here. Took one look and said he must have another box or two of hardcover books that he has not given me to shelve yet! Sound like he may be getting the whole bookcase space after all...lol

The opposite side of the closet has the electrical panel box for the basement. That really limited where I placed the leftover storage units. I tried to make the best of it, but I am not very happy with how this side turned out. I think I may get one more bookcase to hold the iris carts and then get rid of the white plastic units they now slide into. I would like to get rid of the cubes too...they are hard to place items in as you are so limited by size.

The blank bit of wall on the right is where I plan to hang a couple rows of 3M hooks for my ribbon rings. I have the ribbon on the ribbon ring tags and then have those tags on shower curtain rings...sorted by colour.

Just to the left, outside the walk in closet, there is a very ugly looking dresser and a hutch type topper that does not match at the moment. I hate the look of them at the moment, but they were free and will look fine once I take the time to paint them white. The dark dresser holds boxes of envelopes, card blanks, and assorted other odds and ends. My cricut, cricut supplies and cartridges all live on top of the dresser.

There is an alcove across from this dresser that will eventually hold my computer, printer, the cricut and gypsy...but for now, they have to live here. I need a table or countertop to set up the computer and have not found one as of yet. Well, not found one for free, that is!

Here is a snapshot of the alcove...with some assorted boxes of pictures that need to be hung, a few organizing containers, and other assorted junk!!! The closet door is at the left edge of the photo. The bookcases I showed you on my other scraproom post, are showing to the right side of the photo.

Monday, 9 March 2015

They had previously camped in a tent trailer (sometimes called a pop-up trailer in America), and will sell that one now. The new trailer sleeps 6...room for the grandkids to take a friend along. Oh joy, the grandkids say!
DH and I are thrilled as we always worried about bears when they camped in the tent trailer. When we were younger and our girls were toddlers, we lived in the Kootenay area of BC. We camped there and even into South Western Alberta. There were black bears and Grizzly bears in that area. One weekend, we had a bear circle our campsite all night. DH had a huge campfire going and lit a long, thick branch and used it to get us into the jeep, where it was safer. We promptly upgraded to a regular trailer soon as we gt home.

We are sure glad they did the same!

They stopped by to show us the photos as they are having the dealership do some improvement before they pick it up. I think it is a 21 or maybe 22 foot trailer and has a rear slide that holds a queen size bed, and twin bunk beds up at the front. The table and benches pop together to make a double bed for friends. They have a furnace, an air conditioner, and a bathroom now too...that sure makes camping much more comfortable...

I made this card for them. I had just picked up these trailer toppers a couple of days ago. That was very lucky as I did not know they were looking to upgrade.

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

A few of you have asked for a wee tour of my craft room at our new house. It has taken me awhile, but I finally have most things put away and can give you a few photos...

I was a bit slow unpacking in here, as I did not have enough room to put everything away! I finally found enough matching bookcases to hold all the items that used to live in my wall of pantry cupboards at the old house. First one, then another and finally a third! All matching the one I had previously. What luck! They are very 1980's or 90's,,, not anything I would would want anywhere else in my house...but the price was right, and they are very heavy and sturdy!

I am keeping to a very small budget for my craft room as we have reno plans for new counters, and floors upstairs...as well as having the interior of the house painted. The painting quotes came in at 5 grand for the top two floors. Ceilings, walls, baseboards, window ledges and closets. That does not even include doors or bi-fold doors! Ugh! It has been 8 years since we painted a whole house...my oh my, it has sure gone up! I talked them into a 10% discount as we have used them 4 times before and then I slashed the craft room budget and turned to Craigslist. lol

DH donated his old office desk and file cabinet. When we bought that desk 20 or 25 years ago, we had a matching piece of oak cut to match the desk. Those two pieces form the creative working area of my room. Now I know oak is out of style, but c'est la vie... The eagle eyed among you may notice the larger brown woven baskets under the file cabinet desk. The largest holds my zippered binders of acrylic stamps. The smaller one is full of stamps that need filed away in their correct places....ughhh!
I have an ugly unfinished wooden support piece to hold up this side of the table...but have plans to swap this out for some Ikea legs...just as soon as I can get to Ikea...

Many of you know the previous owners of the house let us in a day early. It is unheard of here and it was so nice of them. I managed to get a painter to come in that day and paint my room. Thank goodness, as once the furniture went in it would have been impossible to paint it.

I hung the two tall white Embellishment towers over the one desk and slid some 6x6 Michael's storage cubes under them to help carry the weight. Just behind me is a wall of 12x12 Michael's cubes that hold the rest of my embellishments. Each drawer has a theme...travel, girl, boy, garden, water, love, etc. My various square jars of flowers, ribbons and other doodads seem to fit nicely on top of these and the oak bookshelf beside them.

That bookshelf holds my 6x6 as well as 8x8 design papers, cardstock, and same sized scrapbook albums. 81/2x 11 card stock is filed by colour, in magazine holders. The shoe boxes hold various card making kits that I have created myself. I need to remember to use these!!!

The white tower holds 12 iris carts. The top two are inks and the rest are wooden stamps and alpha stamps. I am going to change up the DP I lined the fronts of these with. I want something in the aqua/green brown shades of my new room. The green plastic drawers are my Xmas card making papers, embellies, and general Xmas doodads. You can just see the entry door to my room to the right of those green plastic drawer units.

My room is sort of shaped like a Z...if you could imagine the Z to have a straight line down instead of a slanted one! You walk in the door and see the area that forms the straight line of the Z. This is where I stashed the three bookcases. The hold my 12x12 Scrapbook albums and 12x12 design papers and card stock, as well as an assortment of pages sleeves, and other assorted scrapbook supplies. The shoe boxes hold envelopes, pre-printed card blanks (that I never seem to remember to use up), and a few odds and ends of themed supplies. Mainly wedding and outdoors/water themes as those seem to be what I scrapbook most! The various baskets and containers are not all filled yet. When we moved, I consolidated items into a large box so I could stack the baskets etc inside each other. That took up less room in the moving boxes. So while I am unpacked, I do still need to fine tune what exactly goes in each and then get it all labeled. For now, it has been roughly sorted but needs some fine tuning,.

The book shelf closest to my desk area, holds all my card UFO's carefully stashed away in shoe boxes. The iris carts on the bottom two rows are my 12x12 self made kits. I placed all of these kits, as well as my snippet containers here...as close to my desk as possible. Hopefully that helps me to actually use them!! The rows of brown woven drawers on the middle shelf hold supplies I use all the time...like pop dots, tape refills, shading stumps, pencils, copics, etc.

The next shelf has the snippets and four more boxes of self made card kits. Top row needs tweaked. The wicker basket tray holds TH stains, stickles, H2O's, and other assorted things in bottles. I think I need to add an extra shelf board to hold those two brown woven baskets that looked perched in the corners. The hold embossing powders and assorted embossing supplies. Have to figure out a way to keep my heat gun somewhere there too.

The shorter wood shelf beside my desk with the TV on it, holds my Project Life supplies, more UFO;s and iris carts with 12x12 DP's from the themes I scrapbook the most. My thin metal dies also live here in a woven wicker basket and my embossing folders are in a brown woven basket just to the left of them. This keeps them easily to hand as my Big Shot sits on the left edge of my desk. The woven bacsket tray for the dies is driving me crazy...it does not match the other baskets of this size and style. I have a matching one somewhere in the garage...must remember to go on a hunt for it and swap this one out. It is driving my OCD tendencies crazy!!!

I will show you the other side of the Z on another post. There is also a walk in closet just off this room...I share that with DH's books. It is a great place to hide all the sort of random things that are hard to organize. Oh yeah...almost forgot to mention that I have plans to hang all my ribbon on one wall of the closet. It will be nice to finally have it all in one place!.